Burger King made waves today after it released a TV ad that purposely triggered the Google Assistant. The ad ends with a person saying "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?"—a statement designed to trigger any Google Assistant devices like Android phones and Google Home to read aloud a description of the hamburger's ingredients. Google apparently wasn't happy with a third-party hijacking its voice command system to advertise fast food and has issued a server-side update to specifically disable Burger King's recording.

Further Reading

Before the ad was disabled, the Google Assistant would verbally read a list of ingredients from Wikipedia. Of course the Internet immediately took to Wikipedia to vandalize the burger's entry page, with some edits claiming it contained "toenails" or "cyanide." Getting the Google Assistant to actually read one of these false edits was a tough task, since the Google Assistant gets its data from Google's search index, rather than a live query of Wikipedia. Still, according to The Verge, there was actually a brief period when the Google Assistant would read a false edit.

Google's shutdown of the feature is interesting. The ad will still wake up a Google Home—the "Ok Google" phrase will light up the device, and the little lights on top will spin while it waits for the query to make a round trip to Google's servers. Google Home will no longer dutifully recite the burger's ingredient list, though. Apparently Google has made changes so that Burger King's specific recording of the phrase will no longer trigger a voice response. Instead, the Google Home just quietly goes back to sleep, without any response to the query. Having a live person ask "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?"' will still trigger a voice response, though.

Further Reading

Android phones are a little less susceptible to inadvertent hotword triggers thanks to a feature called "trusted voice," which aims to listen only to "Ok Google" triggers from the device owner. Android phones also don't have "Ok Google" enabled by default, giving Burger King a smaller target area. Google is working on a voice-based user authentication scheme for Google Home, which should shut down similar hotword hijacks in the future. Google Home would be the first Google voice product to detect and differentiate between multiple user voices on the fly—a task I think even some humans would have trouble with—so the feature is taking some time.

The total time the ad triggered the Assistant was about three hours. Burger King is still on the hook to run the now-defanged ad on television, but we're sure the company already got its money's worth thanks to tech articles like this one.

Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo

So, this means that Google has a giant database full of voiceprints, necessary to filter out the recording of Burger King's voice actor - interesting...

Honestly, it sounds like a pretty easy OTA update overall. The audio from the commercial should be the same everywhere, so (accounting for uncontrollable acoustic variables, which Home already does in order to function in the first place) it seems pretty simple to block that one particular series of sounds.

Wow. Fuck you, Burger King. Are you using the same brain-dead, tone-deaf ad agency as Pepsi?

This wasn't tone deaf. I think it was a smart idea to essentially increase the length of their ad for free. Besides Google knows this is a problem, they had phones going off when people said 'OK Google' during their presentation so it's really their fault they haven't made it more secure.

What a great response from Google, hahaha. I can't believe Burger King wanted to piss off so many people like that. How they didn't see the user abuse coming either is a mystery.

I guarantee you this ad passed through at least 3 conference rooms of excited, smiling, cheerful faces—corporate folks at Restaurant Brands International and a bunch of ad folks excited about getting paid that fat national TV spot creative money—and everybody was thrilled about the NEW EXCITING WAY OF INTERACTING WITH BRANDS.

The idea that someone might not want this likely didn't even occur to them—or they dismissed the idea by saying that only nerds and privacy neckbeards would care and who listens to them anyway.

Google Home would be the first Google voice product to detect and differentiate between multiple user voices on the fly—a task I think even some humans would have trouble with—so the feature is taking some time.

Judging by the number of phone callers that can't distinguish between my dad, my brother and I, I'm certain humans have trouble with it.

And that's who you're trying to get it to distinguish between. Family members who share both the genetic components of voice and the learn mannerisms of speech. Tough problem.

There's something particularly creepy about modern advertisements exploiting the very recent introduction of always-listening digital assistants. Google's fix is enough to stop the trolling, but it's a chilling reminder that everything you say is being analyzed by these devices for the magic words. Either we're all going to get used to giving up a bit of privacy for convenience, or attempts to game the assistants are going to make people give up on the voice trigger and go back to buttons.

So, this means that Google has a giant database full of voiceprints, necessary to filter out the recording of Burger King's voice actor - interesting...

Honestly, it sounds like a pretty easy OTA update overall. The audio from the commercial should be the same everywhere, so (accounting for uncontrollable acoustic variables, which Home already does in order to function in the first place) it seems pretty simple to block that one particular series of sounds.

EDIT: Ninja-ed by a few seconds.

I don't think they did a OTA update for that. "OK Google" still activates the device (this runs locally), then it gets handed to Google's servers and THERE Google will have grounded that.

AFAIK nothing of this Google Assistant stuff runs on your phone.

Actually I think Burger King deserves a medal for making clear that Google Assistant is very easy to abuse and they did nothing worse with it than making your phone reading something more or less harmless. Well done.

I'm also known to do things like that if people leave their phone in the meeting room when they go to lunch.

Ok Siri remind me in one hour to buy GekkePrutser a coffee :') And then wait.

We really need some kind of voice print id on phone to make this kind of prank a bit harder.

Actually in the ideal case this should work just like a fingerprint reader.

Edit: But if this kind of voice authentication runs not locally but on Google's servers this would be like giving them your fingerprint to be able to unlock your phone with it. Ok, in fact they probably already have your voice profile anyway...

I'm also known to do things like that if people leave their phone in the meeting room when they go to lunch.

Ok Siri remind me in one hour to buy GekkePrutser a coffee :') And then wait.

We really need some kind of voice print id on phone to make this kind of prank a bit harder.

There is, at least for Google. It just isn't enabled by default.

Ah ok i didn't know that. I have an Android tablet only and I don't use it for voice commands. And all of our work phones are iPhones. Siri doesn't have anything like this. It works just fine when I try pranks like this

First, I'd have to allow that Google device in my house. Then, I'd have to allow the Burger King ad to play in my house. I'm doubly protected from this one. I don't understand why anyone would introduce a listening device that sends all sounds to Google into their environment.

I want someone to file a complaint against Burger King for hacking. After all, it was deliberate unauthorized access of an individual's home network...

That's absurd. Should such a precedent ever be set, you would have to filter out any instance of the words "ok" and "Google" used consecutively in any broadcast that might potentially trigger the always listening function. Burger King ran an arguably clever ad that exploited a glaring oversight in Google's design of this function, and Google responded appropriately by mitigating said oversight thus making the steaming heap that is The Internet of Shit ever slightly less shitty. Let's just please leave it at that.

First, I'd have to allow that Google device in my house. Then, I'd have to allow the Burger King ad to play in my house. I'm doubly protected from this one. I don't understand why anyone would introduce a listening device that sends all sounds to Google into their environment.

It doesn't. Only after the hot word. Otherwise your battery wouldn't last 2 hours.

This response by Google beats the alternative; but isn't wildly reassuring.

It's certainly good that Google isn't cheering at this...'creative'...method for driving engagement or whatnot; but they are fooling themselves if they think that they can weed out more than a few of the most visible and blatant bad actors through manual screening.

If you are going to have a hot mic basically acting as an unsanitized input; you need to fix it properly. Hopefully they will do that.

I'm also known to do things like that if people leave their phone in the meeting room when they go to lunch.

Ok Siri remind me in one hour to buy GekkePrutser a coffee :') And then wait.

We really need some kind of voice print id on phone to make this kind of prank a bit harder.

Actually in the ideal case this should work just like a fingerprint reader.

Edit: But if this kind of voice authentication runs not locally but on Google's servers this would be like giving them your fingerprint to be able to unlock your phone with it. Ok, in fact they probably already have your voice profile anyway...

They probably do. They have what they need to build them anyway. They keep all the recordings of OK Google searches! You can find them on your Google history online.